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Capital Punishment Essay Examples

Each year there about 250 people added to death row and only 35 of them are
even executed. The death penalty is the harshest form of punishment actually enforced by
the United States government. Once the jury has convicted a criminal offense they go to
the second part of the trial, the punishment part. If then the jury considers the death
penalty, then the judge agrees that the criminal will have to face a form of execution.
Lethal injection is the most widely used by todays death row criminals. For a period
between 1972 to 76, capital punishment was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme
Court. There are many reasons for why they thought that. The death penalty was looked
at a cruel and unusual punishment under the eighth amendment. This decision was
switched when a new method of execution was formed. Capital punishment is a difficult
issue and there are many opinions as there are people on this earth.
Since the beginning of the United States there has been over 13,000 legal
executions. Texas has executed the most people since the death penalty has been
reinstated in 1976. There are only about 30-60 prisoners killed yearly.  The Bible requires
the death penalty for a wide variety of crimes, including sex before marriage, adultery,
homosexual behavior, doing work on Saturday, and murder. It even calls for some
criminals to be tortured to death by burning them alive(SOURCE 1). Some of the things
stated in the last quote were a little morbid, and made me question in what I truly believe
in. John Stuart Mill once stated,  When there has been brought home to any one, by
conclusive evidence, the greatest crime known to law; and when the attendant
circumstances suggest no palliation of guilt, no hope that the culprit may even yet not be
unworthy to live among mankind, nothing to make it probable that the crime was an
exception to general character rather than a consequence of it, then I confess it appears to
me that to deprive the criminal of the life which he has proved himself to be
unworthy–solemnly to blot him out from the fellowship of mankind and from the
catalogue of the living– is the most appropriate as it is certainly the most impressive,
mode in which society can attach to so great a crime the penal consequences which for the
security of life it is indispensable to annex to it, this was stated before Parliament on April
21, 1868. I find that in this passage a lot of good is said. How can you not agree with
what he said.
In 1994 there were 2,850 persons awaiting execution. Yet like stated before only
30-60 are executed yearly. This is ridiculously low number compared to 199 persons
executed in 1935. Many people feel that innocent people will be executed, but I feel that if
there was enough information to convict that person than they should be convicted for
their wrong doings. You know once a murder is executed , then he cant do anymore harm
to society. Also, once the persons are executed  there are no further costs for the tax payer
to maintain. All that capital punishment is, is a method of retributive punishment that is as
old as earth itself. Retribution, or an eye for an eye and life for a life, is justice at its best.
Through  my findings, and talking to my fellow people. I have concluded in being
for capital punishment. I feel that retribution is a justification for capital punishment,
because it is an injustice to tolerate criminal behavior such as murder. For a person to just
go to jail while the family of the victim is in grief is unfair. I feel that it is are duty is to
serve justice and have the person executed. Despite the moral argument concerning the
inhumane treatment of the criminal,  the punishment is meted out because of the nature of
the crime. Should a person on death row really get of free? I think if not capital
punishment, then the jail should think of a outstanding  mode of cruelty to deter from the
crime. We should have them endeavor some punishment for the living criminal that shall
act in their human mind as a deterrent force that is comparable to death.

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